Note Ban Impact: Hawkers, small traders move to e-payment

Unable to undertake transaction in the absence of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes, some vegetable vendors and small traders have taken to using cashless means of payment like Paytm and card readers.

A lot of hawkers and roadside sellers say that since most consumers are also shifting to e-payments, sales figures are coming back to normal

Naresh Kumar, who owns a grocery shop in Greater Kailash, is availing online payment services to keep his business going.

“Our sales dropped after government scrapped high-value currency notes. People would come with old currency notes which we don’t accept. So I started accepting payments online. Some customers who order in bulk are finding it easy to pay me online,” he told news agency PTI.

Like Kumar, many other vegetable sellers, roadside hawkers and food stall owners have installed Paytm on their phones especially since the number of customers went down drastically after the Government announced demonetization.

A lot of them say that since most consumers are also shifting to e-payments, sales figures are coming back to normal.

In another major relief to consumers, many vegetable vendors in parts of Delhi are also turning to cashless transactions by maintaining a card reader.

Benefiting from the move are companies like Paytm, Freecharge and Mobikwik. Paytm — last valued at $5 billion by investors including Alibaba’s payments affiliate Ant Financial and MediaTek — says it’s just getting started.

It’s rolled out its app in 10 Indian languages and continues to sign up merchants by the thousands. It announced a zero-transaction fee for merchants on mobile payments and no-fee money transfers from Paytm to bank accounts we well as a DIY kit for novice neighborhood merchants and hawkers.

Its user base has now hit 150 million and daily transactions have averaged 7 million since Modi’s move, more than the “combined average of all credit and debit cards in India,” the company said. Its gross merchandise value has reached $5 billion so far this year, already outpacing 2015’s $3 billion.